Page 9 of Autumn at the Willow River Guesthouse
She had to get away. Steve would no doubt come after her, wrap his arms around her, unveil a few creative excuses and get himself back in her good books. The most worrying thing, however, was that she knew she would fall for it. When nothing about her life any longer seemed stable, she would grasp for whatever stability she could find, and he would be back in her life, forgiven.
Not this time.
She staggered down a path to a towpath alongside the canal, a pretty, flower-lined place with wrought iron benches and ducks waiting to be fed where they had spent many a summer evening muttering sweet nothings and musing on their long and eventful future together. Where they would live, what they would do, how many children they would have. Lily felt like the world was spinning faster and faster, ready to throw her off. She grabbed on to a stone wall surrounding a flowerbed and waiting for a wave of dizziness to pass.
Something buzzed in the purse still slung over her shoulder.
Her phone.
She pulled it out. A picture of her and Steve together in front of the Tate Gallery was pulsing on the screen.
It had started already. He was probably in the lift now, perhaps as far as the lobby, looking for her, wondering where she had gone.
Her feet felt made of stone. She pushed away from the flowerbed but couldn’t move, as though she were trapped. Soon he would find her, and the excuses would start.
Screaming, she pulled back her hand and tossed her mobile into the canal. Almost at once the hold over her felt broken, and she found herself running up the towpath, up a set of steps onto a bridge over the canal, down another road, away from everything.
When exhaustion made her pull up, she felt something she hadn’t felt in forever.
Free.
What to do now? She had no home or job, and her boyfriend was a cheating, sponging pig. She had no hope except to press reset and try to build it all up again: find another tiny flat, another soulless job, another worthless boyfriend.
Lily shook her head. There had to be more to life than this. But what? She had just thrown her access to the world into the murky waters of an East London canal.
She walked on a little further, no longer sure what she was doing or where she was going. There, at the end of the street, was a phone box.
Not really sure what she was doing, she went inside, felt a momentary relief that the phone was still in working order, then dropped a pound into the coin slot and called the only number she could remember by heart.
The dial tone pulsed in her ear. Lily wasn’t sure what she would do if no one answered.
Then: ‘Hello?’
Lily wanted to cry. ‘Dad? It’s me, Lily. I’m not doing too well. I think I need a little help….’
6
Homecoming
With all her worldly possessions in a suitcase at her feet, her hopes and dreams floating somewhere in a drain nearby, Lily was waiting outside the City Lodge when her parents’ car pulled up. Pete Markham wound down the driver’s window and leaned out.
‘Taxi for a wonderful but struggling young lady?’
‘Dad!’
He climbed out and they shared a warm embrace, before he opened the passenger door for her and then put her case into the back.
‘Your mother’s cooking dinner,’ he said, as he started the car and turned out of the hotel’s car park. ‘We’re both so glad you’re coming home.’
‘You didn’t have to pick me up,’ Lily said. ‘I could have got the train.’
‘Not when my little girl’s upset,’ Pete said. ‘Although, I was thinking of picking you up in the van, just for a laugh.’
‘How is the mobile catering industry?’
‘Lively,’ Pete said. ‘Sycamore Park has been busy this year, and I’ve had a lot of private bookings.’
‘And the side project?’
